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-T MEADE 
GenCol 1 




FINDING and PICKING 
THE RIGHT MAN FOR 
the WORK 






















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HOW TO GET 
WORKMEN 

DRAWING ON YOUR LABOR 
SOURCES AND 
HANDLING APPLICANTS 

HOW A FACTORY WEEDED OUT 
A HUNDRED MEN—YET 
SCORED AN OUTPUT 
RECORD 

FIFTEEN TESTED WAYS TO 
SECURE LABORERS, 
HELPERS AND SKILLED 
WORKMEN 


By H. A. WORMAN 

!\ 



A. W. SHAW COMPANY 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 
A. W. SHAW COMPANY, Ltd,, LONDON 
1913 










\aJ 6 Sbr 


THE MAGAZINE OF BUSINESS 


SYSTEM “HOW-BOOKS" 

How to Increase Your Sales 
How to Increase a Bank’s Deposits 
How to Systematize the Day’s Work 
How to Increase the Sales of the Store 
How to Sell Real Estate at a Profit 
How to Sell More Life Insurance 
How to Sell More Fire Insurancb 
How to Write Letters that Win 
How to Talk Business to Win 
How to Write Advertisements that Sell 
How to Sell Office Appliances and Supplies 
How to Collect Money by Mail 
How to Finance a Business 
How to Run a Store at a Profit 
Others in Preparation 

FACTORY “HOW-BOOKS" 

How to Get More Out of Your Factory 
How Scientific Management is Applied 
How to Get Help 
How to Cut Your Coal Bill 
How to Handle Workmen 
How to Systematize Your Factory 
Others in Preparation 

STANDARD VOLUMES AND SETS 

THE KNACK OF SELLING 
(In Six Books) 


BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE LIBRARY 
(Three Volumes) 


BUSINESS MAN’S LIBRARY 
(Ten Volumes) 


BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 


BUSINESS MAN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA 
(Two Volumes) 


THE SYSTEM OF BUSINESS 
(Ten Units—Thirty Volumes) 

In Preparation 


WE MAGAZINE (/MANAGEMENT 





Copyright, 1913, by 

A. W. SHAW COMPANY 














CONTENTS 


Chapter 

I 


II 


III 


IV 


V 


VI 


S 


RECRUITING THE WORK¬ 
ING FORCE . 

Recognizing good men who cannot sell their services; see¬ 
ing through planned interviews. Judging a man by his 
mannerisms. What to avoid in new men. 

PERSONAL INTERVIEWS IN 
HIRING MEN. 

Pointers on hiring workers. Impracticability of putting 
old men at new work. Guarding against the critic and the 
mischief maker. 


HIRING UNSKILLED WORK¬ 
MEN . 

What to select in unskilled men. Too much brains in too 
small a job, a mistake. An unusual method of hiring un¬ 
skilled labor. 


HIRING SEMI-SKILLED 
WORKMEN . 

Value in general experience. How one man proved his 
worth. Fitting the workman to the boss makes for 
harmony. 


HIRING SKILLED WORK¬ 
MEN «. 

In a young workman’s service, many changes may not de¬ 
note a floater. Good tools bespeak a fine workman. What 
to pay a man to start. 


PROMOTING MEN FROM 
THE RANKS . 


Page 

5 


19 


. 27 


. 35 


41 


47 


Encourage your own men by giving them first chance. Re¬ 
ducing the pay roll by transfers to place men where they 
fit. How to keep track of the men in your plant. 






4 CONTENTS 


Chapter P age 

VII NEIGHBORHOOD SOURCES 

OF SUPPLY.53 

Friends of your own mechanics a good field. Machinery 
houses list good operators. Blind advertisements and 
card lists often supply expert men. 


VIII GETTING IN TOUCH WITH 

OUT-OF-TOWN WORKMEN . 57 

Standing lists of applicants kept alive by a “tickler” file a 
source of supply. Good workmen found among the lay¬ 
offs in industries which are slack. 


EMPLOYMENT FORMS 


Number 

1 RATE AND TRANSFER CHANGE CARD .... 16 


2 EMPLOYEE’S ADDRESS CARD.17 

3 A TRIP WITH AN APPLICANT.21 

4 REQUISITION FOR HELP CHART..31 

5 FACTORY APPLICATION BLANK.37 

6 OFFICE APPLICATION BLANK.45 

7 EMPLOYMENT RECORD FOLDER.49 

8 A BETTER REFERENCE LETTER.55 


9 QUIT SLIP AND FINAL INTERVIEW RECORD . . 63 










I 


RECRUITING THE WORKING 
FORCE 


L ABOR is the chief commodity entering 
any factory. Outlay for raw material, 
fuel, supplies, rarely equals the pay 
roll by month or year. Usually wages amount 
to twice the cost of materials: in many fac¬ 
tories w 7 here the finish and accuracy of parts 
require elaborate processes, the money spent 
for men trebles the expenditure for the wood 
and iron which they fashion into finished 
product. 

Is this overwhelming importance of labor 
recognized in the methods used in bargaining 
for it ? Analysis shows the contrary to be true. 
The purchasing agent for materials bulks large 
in every organization of size. In rank and sal¬ 
ary he is the peer of the sales manager. It is 
conceded that the profits of the house depend 
on his ability to “buy right,” to forestall mar¬ 
ket fluctuation, to secure raw stock of standard 
quality at the lowest possible price, no less than 
on the skill of the sales department in dispos¬ 
ing of output. To aid him, all the resources of 
the organization are marshalled; factory meth¬ 
ods are modified at his bidding; foremen bow 
to his decisions. Nor is his vital relation to the 






6 


HOW TO GET HELP 


success of the business in any way over-rated. 

Purchase of labor, on the other hand, is 
treated as incidental. Either the selection of 
workmen is made part of the duty of the super¬ 
intendent, left to the foremen, or is intrusted 
to a minor official having none of the authority 
and not more than a third of the pay of the 
materials purchasing agent. It is the rule, 
indeed, in factories employing a thousand men 
or less to depend on the factory head or depart¬ 
ment chiefs to find the mechanics and laborers 
they need. Yet every consideration prompt¬ 
ing that machinery and raw stock shall be 
bought by a specialist, familiar with the mar¬ 
ket conditions of the hour, applies with equal 
force to the purchase of labor. 

Men are harder to judge than bars of steel, 
brass ingots or bales of fiber. “According to 
sample” does not hold in dealing with them. 
Every laborer, “handy man,” machinist, is a 
sample himself whose fitness can be determined 
only by patient inquiry which superintendent 
and foremen haven’t time to conduct. They 
act on the theory that the simplest way is to 
try the applicant out. It is simple—also costly 
beyond reason. 

To be charged up against the process, there 
is the time lost by the skilled worker who 
“breaks in” the new recruit, the materials 
spoiled, the tools injured during the operation 
and further education of the novice, the de¬ 
crease in product from the machine or bench 
involved. It is true that the average man must 
be broken in. The point to be remembered is 
that the process pays only when a permanent 
workman is thereby developed—and that care¬ 
ful, methodical selection of applicants by a 
trained mind will save more than its costs. 
The man who chooses employees for any con- 


FINDING THE RIGHT MAN 


7 


cern, large or small, should have the same kind 
of judgment and trained faculties possessed by 
a good purchasing agent. The quality of the 
individual determines the quality of the organ¬ 
ization—and on this last depend those linked 
and vital things, quality of output and the 
reputation of the house. 

Trying Out Inefficients Rather Than Intel¬ 
ligent Selection Always Bad Practice 

The ideal force is that which turns itself only 
at long intervals. In that way lie efficiency of 
effort, understanding and co-operation with 
the management, reduction of spoiled work 
and broken tools—in one word, economy of 
manufacture. Trying out inefficients as a sub¬ 
stitute for intelligent selection works another 
evil to the company practising it, by spreading 
the report of easy discharges and the difficulty 
of holding a job or “making good.” Appli¬ 
cants shy away from such factories, since every 
discharge is a black mark on a man’s record— 
particularly dreaded by the steady, self- 
respecting workmen the house desires most to 
secure. 

In recent years this consideration carries 
tremendous weight. The enormous increase 
in production and the failure of existing ap¬ 
prentice systems have made it difficult even 
for factories in the most favorable locations 
to engage as many high-grade mechanics and 
machine tenders as they need. For concerns re¬ 
moved from the great labor markets and tagged 
with the name of “hiring and firing” with 
little regard for the individual, the securing of 
skilled labor has become a costly and strenuous 
task. To one company of this character, 
known to the writer, the cost of the additional 
tool-makers required by changes in models 


8 


HOW TO GET HELP 


and by augmented sales ranged from $100 to 
$200 each. This included the traveling ex¬ 
penses of the foremen who engaged the men 
and the bonus for moving exacted by the latter. 
This firm had followed the “try out” method 
until it had become a double burden on the 
business. 

Contrast with this “hit and miss” process, 
the system of another well-known company 
which has recognized that the intelligent hiring 
of factory and office men is a trade apart from 
the executive conduct of a division or depart¬ 
ment. Though distant from the leading labor 
centers, the reputation of its labor bureau for 
giving a fair hearing and a square deal to every 
applicant not patently undesirable has gone 
abroad and brought many pilgrims to its doors 
seeking places. With a normal pay roll of 
about 3,000 names, no less than 42,000 
candidates for jobs presented themselves 
within two years. It is worth noting that 
seventy-five per cent of this number failed to 
pass the first tests, twenty-five per cent were 
rated as usable judged by the rather high com¬ 
pany standards, and five per cent were either 
given employment immediately or listed for 
notification when vacancies should occur. The 
high grade of applicants attracted is indicated 
by the ratio of one usable man to every four 
presenting themselves. 

Snap Judgment Is Not a Basis for the Best 
Selection 

The moral is evident. Thousands of workers 
take their idea of a company’s labor policy— 
and of factory conditions, since they see noth¬ 
ing of the shop interiors—from the employ¬ 
ment man, be he the superintendent interpolat¬ 
ing rapid-fire interviews with applicants 


FINDING THE RIGHT MAN 


9 


among his other tasks, a foreman with a va¬ 
cancy to be filled, or a regular agent whose first 
concern is to supply the factory with compe¬ 
tent workmen. Impatience, unnecessary 
harshness, blunders or arbitrary decisions, re¬ 
fusal to deal frankly with applicants, is nega¬ 
tive advertising which reaches the most remote 
corners of the country, condemns the company 
and ultimately limits its market to the unfor¬ 
tunates who have no choice but to take what 
offers and the independents able to exact guar¬ 
antees before filling out the company’s forms. 

Ability to size up a man intuitively is no 
common gift. Most of us in arriving at the 
value and fitness of the prospective employee 
must substitute for the captain’s insight, ac¬ 
quaintance with the qualities and the degree 
of skill the open place demands and knowledge 
of the surface marks bespeaking health, experi¬ 
ence, intelligence, capacity, industry and hon¬ 
esty in the man before us. Instead of trusting 
to the snap judgment of the industrial prodigy, 
however, we have it in our power to make 
searching though tactful inquiry into the his¬ 
tory and character of the applicant, thus bas¬ 
ing our decision on facts as well as an impres¬ 
sion too often influenced by negligible factors 
in the man’s appearance or personality. 

It is an axiom that any man worth hiring— 
from a laborer to an expert machinist or ac¬ 
countant—is worth interviewing, if only to 
determine the vacant niche in the organiza¬ 
tion where he will be content and his abilities 
will produce the best results. First impres¬ 
sions are valuable, but they should be corrected 
by diligent study of the applicant’s record, 
personal equipment and characteristics. Many 
competent mechanics and office men lack the 
art of personal salesmanship; long service in 


10 


HOW TO GET HELP 


a single organization may make embarrassing 
the very necessity of applying for a place else¬ 
where, and only careful handling will bring out 
the applicant’s real worth and capabilities. 

The man of many jobs, on the other hand, 
has gone through the ordeal so often that he 
has learned how to present his wares in the 
most favorable light. He may have learned, 
too, just what positions are open and have 
planned his approach and his replies accord¬ 
ingly. He has keyed himself up to a special 
effort also and not infrequently this artificial 
energy and acuteness will carry him trium¬ 
phantly through a brief interview and win him 
a position, where a more exhaustive test would 
have brought collapse and exposure of his 
incompetence or undesirability. 

Wanting a man to take charge of and reor¬ 
ganize a special stock department recently, 
I was much impressed at first sight by a young¬ 
ster who presented himself. He had a diploma 
from a small western college and a year’s fac¬ 
tory experience to recommend him, but these 
seemed minor considerations after five min¬ 
utes’ talk with him. 

First Impressions Not Always a Correct or 
Sure Guide 

He appeared aggressive, intelligent, eager 
to take hold and develop himself—urging 
upon me that he wanted “to learn the busi¬ 
ness” and that his purpose was to work up 
through the organization to the highest level 
he could attain. His letter from his last em¬ 
ployer, however, was a trifle colorless; so I 
asked him to call again and sent an inquiry 
to the head of the department in which he had 
been a clerk. 

Before an answer came, he returned—and 


FINDING THE RIGHT MAN 11 

displayed the limitations in outlook and brain 
power which killed his value. In the five min¬ 
utes I gave him, he reproduced idea for idea, 
almost word for word, the matter of his first 
interview—and had nothing further to offer. 
He had “coached up” for our vacant place, 
having received a tip on just the kind of ability 
I was looking for, but had not the initiative or 
mental industry to pursue study of the subject 
after he had made a favorable first impression. 
As an alert, constructive, energetic man was 
needed for the vacancy, he lost his chance. 
And the letter from his former “boss” received 
two days later exactly confirmed my decision 
that he lacked industry, tenacity, the habit of 
study—everything, indeed, the job he coveted 
required. 

Take time, then, to guard against imposition 
of this sort and to get at the real caliber and 
nature of the man before you. Some success¬ 
ful employment agents even refuse to hire a 
skilled man at the first interview, desiring to 
check their first impression of him by subse¬ 
quent study and comparison of his account of 
himself after he has had a chance to forget 
invented details. Satisfactory references and 
answers to the routine questions cannot always 
be trusted—the good nature of his last em¬ 
ployer may be responsible for the first, famil¬ 
iarity with forms may explain the second. 

Too much attention can be paid to the man’s 
story—not, however, to the man himself. His 
appearance, his personality, his manner of car¬ 
rying himself, his walk, the way he sits, his 
speech, the way he meets or avoids your glance, 
his features, his hands, the care he gives his 
person are all sign-boards advertising the 
quality and extent of the stock of brains and 
energy he carries within. It is possible for an 


12 


HOW TO GET HELP 


employer to attach too much importance to 
these things, to make a hobby of them. On the 
other hand, however, they often disclose qual¬ 
ities which the man wants to conceal or sug¬ 
gest other and valuable capacities of which 
he is more or less in ignorance. 

How Personal Characteristics Form the Index 
of Ability 

In general the eyes give index of honesty 
and intelligence, the nose suggests initiative 
or lack of it, the chin decision and force, the 
mouth character. This in a normal individual 
—though the deficiency indicated by one fea¬ 
ture may be more than compensated by the 
unusual strength of another. The hands, too, 
count in this outside estimate of the inner man. 
In a laborer or mechanic, of course, strong 
hands are to be expected as accompaniments 
of well-developed or well-trained muscles— 
just as calloused places on palm and fingers in¬ 
dicate the habit of labor. For factory workers, 
too, the broad, square hand always recom¬ 
mends its owner. 

Put him at his ease as speedily as possible— 
then study him as, off-guard, he reveals him¬ 
self. His alert manner, his apparent self 
respect, the grip he holds on himself may van¬ 
ish the moment he conceives he has secured 
your confidence or sympathy. Then watch for 
the slump—unless his quality is genuine. If 
he slips down in his chair, becomes garrulous, 
shows eagerness to be thought knowing and a 
‘‘good fellow,” he hasn’t the mental and moral 
fiber of the most valuable type of employee. 

If he takes the matter of his employment 
seriously, concentrating his attention on that 
point until it is settled and volunteering no 
information not bearing directly on it, it is 


FINDING THE RIGHT MAN 


13 


likely that he will exhibit the same fixity of 
purpose when he tackles his day’s work, and 
the same reserve in handling or speaking of 
the company’s affairs. Many employment 
agents keep an eye on the men waiting in the 
outer office as well as on the man immediately 
in hand. The quiet, self-contained individual 
who secures the chair nearest the door to the 
inner office and neither takes part in the con¬ 
versation about him nor wastes attention on 
newspapers or other reading, gets a favorable 
mark before the agent knows his name. On 
the other hand, the fellow who can’t keep his 
own counsel, who takes his neighbor into his 
confidences or discusses the baseball games 
with others—unless he be a potential salesman 
—is set down as one who will waste his own 
time and that of his fellows whether he is 
placed in an office or a factory department. 

What Characters to Avoid in Hiring New 
Workmen 

The “drifter” is glib with excuses for his 
various changes—the desirable man will be as 
brief as he is frank about the reasons for his 
leaving his last place. If he was discharged, 
he may be bitter—no capable, industrious 
worker can be blamed for resenting a “pay 
off” slip. But if he is sweeping in his condem¬ 
nation of conditions at his last place, it is safe 
to reject him unless the agent knows from 
other sources that the case is much as he de¬ 
scribes it. The confirmed “knocker” usually 
presents his negative credentials by word of 
mouth; and no degree of skill can counterbal¬ 
ance the effect he will have in the shop or office 
he is assigned to. 

Nice discrimination is needed in hiring the 
man who is ready to take any job you can offer 


14 


HOW TO GET HELP 


him. He may be desperately sincere in his 
promises to leave promotion and compensation 
entirely in your hands, but actual contact with 
unworthy or ill-paid tasks usually upsets his 
resolution. There was the foreman of a large 
southern saw-mill I engaged to take charge of 
a gang of blacksmiths in one of our plants. 

He was in appalling straits, having brought 
his invalid wife North and exhausted his re¬ 
sources so absolutely that he walked twelve 
miles, having no car fare, to inquire for a la¬ 
borer’s job at another of our works. I learned 
of this incident after m}^ first interview with 
him, and decided that his ability to handle men 
would be of use in this blacksmith shop. The 
work done was rough and required no more 
than common intelligence to master it and di¬ 
rect the workmen. His gratitude was almost 
painful—yet it took him just six weeks to 
sicken of the work and announce that I would 
have to pay him more money, find him another 
place or lose him. Of course he was paid off. 

For stock-keeper, on another occasion, I 
hired a young man who was a very fair ac¬ 
countant. With him, too, it was a question of 
bread-money; and though I made it clear to 
him that the work would be heavy and not at 
all like what he was accustomed to, he jumped 
at the chance of taking the place. He was 
“willing to do anything” and admitted that 
the seventeen and one-half cents an hour 
“looked good.” But the mechanical nature of 
the work, the deadly routine, wore him out in 
a fortnight, and he quit with an apology. That 
was a mistake on my part—the company actu¬ 
ally lost money, for he hadn’t acquired either 
speed or facility in handling stock by the time 
he presented his resignation. 

To make up for these disappointments, 


FINDING THE RIGHT MAN 


15 


every employment man encounters squar- 
jawed boys who mean every word of the tire¬ 
some formula, “any job at all.” There were 
two young college men w T ho besieged my office 
two years ago, declining to take refusals when 
I told them I had no places for them. I told 
them there were no openings in the office divi¬ 
sion. They answered that they rejoiced to 
hear it—that they wanted factory jobs. Both 
were too light for truckers or department help¬ 
ers, and I was at a loss to place them. 

To dismiss them, I explained that the only 
jobs I could possibly give them were as errand 
boys. One was twenty, the other twenty-one— 
both college graduates—and I fancied they 
would refuse to be messengers at six dollars a 
week. Not a bit of it. “When do we start?” 
they demanded. I capitulated. They lasted 
five or six weeks—as messengers. By that 
time three or four foremen had asked me to 
transfer them as department clerks or “trac¬ 
ers.” Within a year, both boys had won three 
or four promotions and were drawing fifteen 
dollars a week. Now one of them is an assist¬ 
ant foreman and the other is in line for similar 
promotion. 

Haste or carelessness in interviewing appli¬ 
cants for jobs always is reflected in the reports 
of “pay-offs”—and it cannot be urged too 
strongly that an undue proportion of men who 
quit or are discharged means a serious slump 
in the general efficiency of the departments in¬ 
volved and a corresponding money loss to the 
company when a fresh batch of workmen are 
“broken in” to the vacant places. 

Interviewing men in a crowd, therefore, is 
a costly process, though one still followed by 
companies which find a large number of appli¬ 
cants at their gates every day. It is true that 


16 


HOW TO GET HELP 


at least four men in every five who ask for 
work in the large cities are undesirable, and 
that the separation of the sheep and the goats 
ought to be the preliminary process. 

The trouble is that the process rarely goes 
beyond this preliminary inquiry. The employ¬ 
ment man, with his list of the day’s wants in 
his hand, marches out into the crowd, picks 
out the most likely man, so far as externals go, 
and asks him what he can do, or even demands 
bluntly “Want a foundry job?” If the man 
really needs work, he will take a chance and 
say “yes” to almost any question the agent 
puts to him, trusting to adapt himself to the 
work after he has tackled it. Not infrequently, 
investigation of his fitness for the place goes 
no further; he is simply given a pass and sent 
to the department which has asked for help. 



FORM 1: Cards like this filled in by foremen and sent to the em¬ 
ployment manager keep him advised of progress of all men in the plant 
and are a fair indication of each man’s merit 


Haphazard assignment of workmen like this 
wrongs the company as well as the workman. 
He is put to work without real knowledge of 
what he is able to do, and not infrequently he 
does not understand just what is expected of 
















FINDING THE RIGHT MAN 


17 


him. The consequence is that he is either 
woefully misplaced—in which event he is 
speedily discharged and never makes a second 
attempt to secure employment with the house 
—or even though he makes good, his abilities 


EMPLOYES ADDRESS 
RECORD 


date: 


TO SUPERINTENDENTS, MANAGERS, ET AL'. 


PLEASE FILL OUT A SEPARATE CARD FOR EACH EMPLOYE,GETTING ADDRESS IN 
EACH CASC FROM EMPLOYE DIRECTLY 

FLAT.,..FRONT OR REAR...,._,___ 

IT IS NECESSARY THAT WE BE ADVISED OF ALL SUBSEQUENT CHANGES IN 
ADDRESS AS THIS INFORMATION FREQUENTLY IS NEEDEO USE THESECARDS FOR 
THAT PURPOSE ALSO 


FORM 2: Address cards filled in by the foremen and filed in the em¬ 
ployment office, are useful in finding laid off employees. One man 
obtained many skilled mechanics in an emergency from such a file 


fit him for a better place and he speedily sick¬ 
ens of his unworthy task and leaves of his own 
accord. 

I do not mean that this happens in more than 
a small number of cases—the issue is that the 
man who quits for this reason nearly always 
would develop into a valuable employee if he 
were rightly placed. And I do know that com¬ 
pilation of the records of employment and 
“pay-offs” in a large eastern house employing 
8,000 men disclosed recently that the force was 
turning itself in fourteen months. Traced 
down, this unprofitable condition was found to 
be due to the hasty and unintelligent methods 
of interviewing and assigning men to the de¬ 
partments. 

Reorganization of the employment depart¬ 
ment cut the “pay-offs” squarely in two in six 





18 


HOW TO GET HELP 


weeks and trebled the previous average of 
transfers among the departments, with a cor¬ 
responding increase in efficiency and the indi¬ 
vidual co-operation of the men. Yet the 
changes involved only the addition of an assist¬ 
ant employment agent and an extra clerk. Be¬ 
sides the installing of an “occupation file” 
listing all employees with two or more trades— 
a census of the factory departments was made 
for this purpose—the chief departure was that 
the interviewer in talking to the men at the 
gate, picked out his likely applicants for all 
the places above common laborer and sent them 
in to his office for a closer inquiry into their 
ability and experience before he attempted to 
assign them to the departments needing them. 

This, indeed, is the process followed at the 
best organized city plants I know. The riff¬ 
raff is weeded out with small ceremony and 
the skilled, responsible men given every oppor¬ 
tunity to tell what they can do, what they want 
to do and what they will do. The employment 
man then culls out each class of workers he 
wants and sizes up the fellows who offer them¬ 
selves. 



II 

PERSONAL INTERVIEWS IN 
HIRING MEN 


T O WHOM it may concern’’ letters are of 
little value as references. But in hir¬ 
ing skilled workers of any sort, it is 
worth while at least to secure a confidential re¬ 
port from the man’s last employer. Address 
your query to the foreman for whom the appli¬ 
cant worked, securing his name for that pur¬ 
pose. Letters to the general manager may fail 
to bring a response on the very points you wish 
to emphasize. Usually the answer will be 
prompt and honest, for employers are com¬ 
ing to understand that their interests in this 
respect are mutual. If an applicant is asked 
for references, he should understand that they 
will be consulted as speedily as possible; then 
no delay in making the inquiry should be al¬ 
lowed. It is neither fair to the man nor just 
to the company, which may thus lose the serv¬ 
ices of a valuable workman. 

It is obvious that the character and reputa¬ 
tion of the former employers should influence 
your estimate of the man, his probable worth, 
and the weight to be given their statements 










20 


HOW TO GET HELP 


about him. Too much dependence must not 
be placed on them. It often happens that a 
firm will bear a grudge against an efficient man 
who has resigned and will attempt to punish 
him by refusing a recommendation. Several 
instances have come under my observation. In 
one case this manner of treatment was ac¬ 
corded by a big lumber company to a former 
superintendent w T ho applied to me for a posi¬ 
tion as yard foreman. He explained that he 
could not hope for a favorable report from his 
former employers, narrating the circumstances 
of his resignation. His reasons seemed good, 
and when the expected “knock” came along, I 
disregarded it and hired him on the strength of 
his experience and the impression he had made 
on me. 

A similar case was that of the chief buyer of 
a large Eastern company who quit because of 
a cut in his salary. The firm retaliated with 
unfavorable reports of his work and actually 
kept him unplaced for some time. I took him 
on as assistant purchasing agent because of his 
length of service before the disagreement and 
his knowledge of market conditions; his record 
has been eminently satisfactory. Bias like 
this must be provided against, since every cap¬ 
able workman turned away means a positive 
money loss to the company. 

These are the general considerations which 
apply to the selection of factory workers of 
every grade, every degree of skill. In dealing 
with each class, however, there are certain ad¬ 
ditional qualities to be borne in mind since 
each of the three great classifications requires 
distinct powers of mind and body purchasable 
at varying prices, and offering, therefore, op¬ 
portunity for important wage economies or 
disastrous extravagances, as the employment 


PERSONAL INTERVIEWS 


21 



FORM 3: In the left top corner help is requisitioned. Following the arrows we see how it is obtained from three sources; in the right top cor¬ 
ner, applicants are interviewed; next sent to department needing help. The head of the department if satisfied sends the employee back to the em¬ 
ployment department. In the left-hand column we see how he is enrolled and on the bottom line how he is handled 



























































HOW TO GET HELP 


man is alive to or indifferent to the needs of the 
departments and the current state of the labor 
market. 

Some of the Points to be Considered in Hiring 
Men 

The great industrial concerns, which hire 
laborers literally in herds, submit them to no 
tests except size, age, physical condition and 
nationality. 

Nationality cuts a figure because the labor¬ 
ers in their plants are almost wholly foreign¬ 
ers, speaking no English. Not only must the 
bosses under whom they work know their lan¬ 
guage in order to handle them effectively—a 
sufficient reason for limiting members of any 
department to one nationality—but experience 
has taught the management that each race has 
aptitude for certain kinds of work. If inside 
workers are wanted, Poles, Hungarians, Aus¬ 
trians are hired. If outside men, choice runs 
to Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, Italians. 

Raw recruits, however, need direction in 
finding the places best fitted for their talents. 
I recall a grocer’s driver who applied for a 
place as file clerk in the office division. He 
had a splendid young body, honesty was writ¬ 
ten all over him, likewise, intelligence and 
native wit. The briefest inquiry elicited the 
fact, however, that he lacked the education 
necessary for even a mediocre office man. I 
explained this to him and suggested that he 
start in the factory. He saw my point and took 
a six-dollar job as errand boy in the machine 
shop. He was sincere in wanting to learn and 
hustled through his routine tasks as though 
they were the most important affairs in the 
business. 

At the end of six months, he had every job 


PERSONAL INTERVIEWS 


foreman and mechanic in the shop anxious to 
“show him how” and the toss promoted him 
to be a helper and gave him a simple machine 
to tend. In another six months, he was making 
modest little suggestions of short cuts and 
economies, and at the end of his second year 
was admittedly the best operator in the milling 
and profiling sections of the shop. In spite of 
his youth—he was only twenty-two at the time 
—he was made a sub-foreman in charge of these 
sections at the end of his third year, and his 
path to the head of the whole shop is reason¬ 
ably straight. Now he might have made a good 
file clerk, supplied his lack of arithmetic, writ¬ 
ing, bookkeeping in night schools, but I doubt 
whether he would have “made good ’’ so emphat¬ 
ically as he did in the factory where his frag¬ 
mentary schooling was not so severe a handi¬ 
cap on his own progress or the development of 
his usefulness to the house. 

Another Class of Men Who Require Attention 
of a Different Sort 

The man who “wants to get into another line 
of work,” however, sometimes turns out a 
serious problem. For instance, a mail carrier 
asked for a carpenter’s job just when we 
needed twenty or thirty rough workmen for 
some temporary construction that had to be 
hurried. His experience was limited to odd 
jobs about his own house or his neighbor’s 
places, but he was so firm in his belief that he 
could develop into an expert carpenter, and I 
wanted men so badly, that I took him on, 
simply warning him that I might not be able 
to keep him after the current rush was over. 

It was a “saw and hatchet” job, and he had 
little difficulty in satisfying the foreman so 
long as the rough work held out. On the first 


24 


HOW TO GET HELP 


list the latter handed in for “pay-offs ,’ 1 how¬ 
ever, the mail carrier was included. I took the 
matter up with the foreman, explaining the cir¬ 
cumstances and asking if he could not carry 
the fellow until he could develop something 
like a journeyman’s skill. His answer was 
negative; the postman was intelligent enough, 
but he had the ineradicable clumsiness which 
clings very often to men who take up hand 
work after thirty. Nothing was left, of course, 
but to pay the man off. 

He refused to accept the foreman’s decision, 
however, carried the thing up to the “ front 
office,” brought various social and church in¬ 
fluences to bear, and eventually was reinstated 
on the theory that since he had given up a “life 
job” to come with the company, his discharge 
so soon would stir up public opinion against 
the company. Luckily, he was earnest and 
industrious and the foreman, having him on 
his hands, took the trouble to teach him his 
trade. But the lesson emphasized the danger 
of hiring a man with a permanent occupation 
for a temporary job; or of taking the risk in¬ 
volved in helping a middle-aged man to switch 
to a new trade or avocation. 

“Where have you worked?” then, is a ques¬ 
tion not less important than “Have you a 
trade ? ’ ’ Here the value of the capable employ¬ 
ment man is clearly in evidence. If he has 
grasped the full measure of his opportunities 
and made a careful study of first principles, 
he knows the character of the men employed 
in all the larger establishments in the zone 
from which he draws his supply, the shop con¬ 
ditions in each case, the wage rates, the quality 
of output; and is able from this knowledge to 
make a shrewd estimate of the applicant’s abil¬ 
ity to measure up to the standards of his own 


PERSONAL INTERVIEWS 


25 


company. Of the various trades, also, he 
knows enough to get at the true capacity of the 
man before him, to puncture his pretenses if 
any are put forward, to determine just what 
his value will be if he is added to the house 
organization. In all honesty the applicant 
may claim that he is a tool maker when actu¬ 
ally he has only made dies and simple jigs or 
repaired broken tools. Half a dozen knowing 
questions, however, will put him in his rightful 
classification—make it clear whether he is 
worth the wages he asks. 

Or he may declare that he is a first-class 
mechanic and admit in the next breath that his 
earnings were twenty cents an hour. Here 
again information of the rates obtaining in 
other factories would be of use in determining 
the applicant’s probable usefulness. In some 
smaller towns where rent and living expenses 
are low, high-grade men sometimes draw wages 
no larger than handy men in the larger cities. 

Test the Man Who Can Do Everything . It is 
Probable He is Not Efficient in Anything 
Prove the mechanic who asserts that he can 
i 6 do anything’ 9 in his line. The most profitable 
kind of skill, looking from the employer’s side, 
follows only on devotion to some specialty. 
Belief in his own all-round ability, especially 
if the man be young, is often a “tinkerer’s” ig¬ 
norance of the niceties of his craft. If his 
experience has been in small shops—the only 
situation offering all-round training nowadays 
—the chances are that he has acquired a smat¬ 
tering of many things, but missed the profici¬ 
ency in one calling about which the modern 
factory system is built. If he comes from a 
big shop, his boast may mean simply that he 
was shifted from job to job in the vain hope 


26 


HOW TO GET HELP 


that he might find one he was qualified to hold. 

Be wary of the man who asks too many de¬ 
tail questions. If he is serious and capable, 
three things interest him to the exclusion of 
all else: He wants steady, congenial labor, 
opportunity to make good wages and working 
conditions which will neither menace his health 
or eyesight nor limit his output. If he wants 
to know how the time is kept, how long the 
lunch hour is or how the street cars run, he 
either lacks common initiative or is a “fusser” 
whom acquaintance with the shop methods will 
evolve into a full-fledged critic and mischief- 
maker. 

44 Get out or get in line” has become a pro¬ 
verb among employers, and if the applicant 
has the temperament or habit of mind likely to 
antagonize the company’s aims or methods or 
to refuse acceptance of conditions as they exist, 
it is a serious error to hire him except as a 
stop-gap until a more acceptable man can be 
secured, 



Ill 

HIRING UNSKILLED 
WORKMEN 


W HEN workmen apply at the employ¬ 
ment office, they range themselves 
naturally into three groups. First 
come the unskilled laborers—truckers, jani¬ 
tors, shovellers, material handlers—men of 
mighty thews and sinews under poor control, 
lacking the brain development, experience or 
training which would fit them for anything but 
routine muscular effort. 

In the second class there are found semi¬ 
skilled 4 ‘handy men”—assemblers, operators 
of drill and punch presses, milling, molding 
and a hundred other half-automatic machines 
—possessing intelligence, adaptability and 
some knowledge of tools, but untrained in the 
exact use of them or the possibilities that lie in 
them. Third, and most important, are skilled 
workmen—mechanics, tool and pattern mak¬ 
ers, machinists, hand molders, cabinet makers. 
Having served apprenticeships they are cre¬ 
dited with all-around knowledge of their 
trades; but in practice they are usually special¬ 
ists, the factory system directing their skill 
towards perfection in a circumscribed field. 
With the need for these three classes of 





28 


HOW TO GET HELP 


workmen in tlie average factory, what are the 
essentials to be kept in mind in hiring individ¬ 
uals in each class—remembering that any skill 
or brain power in excess of actual require¬ 
ments must be paid for, either in money or in 
the discontent which accompanies tasks uncon¬ 
genial or beneath the man’s best abilities? 
Neither must the fact be overlooked that in 
an “open shop” intelligence and industry, be¬ 
cause of the division of labor, can break down 
the barriers hedging the semi-skilled and 
skilled occupations—likewise that the me¬ 
chanic who works up from the laborer’s level 
in the company’s employ, generally repays in 
loyalty and efficiency the time spent on his 
training. 

First and foremost hire a sound body for 
every job. In a laborer, vigor and muscular 
development are everywhere recognized as es¬ 
sentials. Less attention, however, is paid to 
the health and physical condition of factory 
and office workers whose duties do not require 
sustained bodily effort. 

Yet health is quite as important for the me¬ 
chanic or machine tender whose eye must be 
true, and hand be steady if he is not to exceed 
his allowed margin of error and is to keep his 
proportion of spoiled work at a minimum. Not 
only is the output of the healthy man greater 
than the weakling’s but its quality is higher, 
his lost days are fewer and the man himself is 
less liable to accidents due to fatigue, over¬ 
strain and dulled faculties. 

If there be a poorer reason for hiring a man 
than a “hard luck story,” it is pity for the ap¬ 
plicant’s ill-health. Even when sympathy 
clouds the judgment of the employment man, 
the inexorable law of department averages 
soon marks the delinquent for dismissal. The 


UNSKILLED WORKMEN 


29 


place of health and sound limbs in the equip¬ 
ment of employees is recognized in the regu¬ 
lation of all the larger and more progressive 
organizations and a man must pass a physical 
examination before he signs the pay roll. In 
the smaller factory, the eyes of the employ¬ 
ment agent must do the work of the physician’s 
stethoscope. 

Like reasons command the rejection of any 
individual bearing signs of drink or dissipa¬ 
tion. Competition has cut profit margins to 
the minimum, and two or three Monday-idle 
machines in any group make serious inroads 
on the department’s earnings. 

The standard, therefore, which the employ¬ 
ment agent must hold to, is the man who will 
produce a regular output every working day 
of the year. Exceptional skill, even genius, 
is out of place in a factory organization unless 
it submits itself to the discipline supporting 
the mediocre majority. 

What is Demanded Most in Hiring Unskilled 
Workmen 

Bodily strength, of course, is the unskilled 
man’s stock in trade. Add a brain sufficiently 
awake to grasp the most effective way of per¬ 
forming the routine duties assigned to him or 
to carry out the directions of a gang boss, and 
you have the minimum measure of a laborer. 
His hands will tell you whether he is accus¬ 
tomed to toil; his shoulders, legs, arms whether 
he has the physical force to perform the tasks 
you would set him at. His manner of moving 
and standing will indicate alertness or stupid¬ 
ity, initiative or a habit of dependence. Clum¬ 
siness may be interpreted as lack of intelli¬ 
gence, sluggish motion as an index of slow 
thinking or dearth of energy—and you are 


30 


HOW TO GET HELP 


purchasing not brawn, merely, but available 
man-power. 

Age is important. Eighteen to thirty-five 
are the years of maximum vigor, though a 
laborer of forty-five with a particular set of 
highly developed muscles is an admirable 
investment if he be healthy and you need a 
specialist of his stripe. Size is a matter of 
moment only when the work demands weight, 
such as trucking, handling heavy materials and 
the like. The well-knit man of medium size 
makes up in quickness, stamina and adaptabil¬ 
ity for any pounds he may lack. 

Since the rolling stone is undesirable, length 
of service in his last place should count, espe¬ 
cially if the company be known as an employer 
of good men, and the applicant’s reasons for 
changing will pass muster. If he be married, 
that is an additional guarantee of steadiness, 
industry, sobriety—his responsibilities will 
anchor him to the new job. Character, hon¬ 
esty, self-respect are qualities which the man’s 
face, his appearance, his previous record will 
affirm or deny as belonging to him. 

This is the laborer reduced to a common 
denominator. If you want a trucker who will 
remain a trucker indefinitely, you need study 
your applicant no further. 

Even with such simple requirements, it is 
sometimes difficult, however, to secure men. 
Resort to unusual methods even in the great 
central market for unskilled men is sometimes 
demanded. Heavy shipments of iron and coal 
recently swamped the unloading gang at a 
plant I was interested in, and the superintend¬ 
ent sent in a hurry call for men to save the $100 
a day demurrage which the blockade in our 
yards was costing. At least one hundred men 
were needed, while it happened that the mar- 


EMPLOYMENT CHART 


UNSKILLED WORKMEN 31 



FORM 4. A card foim or blackboard arranged in this way and carrying a list of all help wanted aids the employment man in keeping track 

of his needs* The blackboard is easily cleaned and the items readjusted as necessary 




































































































32 


HOW TO GET HELP 


ket, just at the opening of lake navigation, was 
empty of the type demanded. 

Recourse was had, therefore, to every agency 
available. Display advertisements were run 
in all the penny newspapers and in all the for¬ 
eign papers, particularly the Italian, Lithuan¬ 
ian and Hungarian dailies. Agents were dis¬ 
patched also along the harbor front in search 
of longshoremen, particularly the organized 
gangs of stevedores which make contracts for 
the unloading of vessels, doing all the work 
themselves and dividing the remuneration. 
Two such gangs were rounded up and hustled 
out to the w T orks, while practically every able- 
bodied man who applied at the downtown em¬ 
ployment office was also dispatched to the 
plant. 

An Unusual Method Adopted to Secure Un¬ 
skilled Men 

The second morning an intelligent Italian 
presented himself, among other of his country¬ 
men, and asking for one of the roustabout jobs, 
pleaded for permanent employment and ex¬ 
plained that he had been a gang boss in rail¬ 
road track elevation. 

“Can’t you round up thirty or forty men 
you know and bring them in f ’’ I asked. “IT1 
pay you, or I’ll give you a steady job on the in¬ 
side if you make good.” 

He leaped at the chance. That afternoon, he 
sent in thirty Italians before five o’clock, and 
telephoned asking us if he could keep on send¬ 
ing men after six o’clock. I kept the office 
open until nine o’clock. At that hour he ap¬ 
peared with the last draft of seven men, bring¬ 
ing his total up to fifty. 

Of the half hundred, forty passed muster, 
and I sent him out to the plant the next day 


UNSKILLED WORKMEN 


33 


with a note to the superintendent suggest¬ 
ing that he be given a place as gang foreman 
over some of his own men. He “made good” 
emphatically, the costly blockade was broken 
in four days and my Italian was rewarded 
with a permanent job as a gang foreman in the 
factory yards. Our newspaper advertising on 
this occasion cost more than $100, our direct 
search for stevedores about $50, while the hir¬ 
ing of the forty Italians cost virtually nothing. 
In the future, too, that Italian gang foreman 
will be a valuable resource when the company 
wants a number of laborers for short terms 
and wants them in a hurry. 

Harnessing raw man-power to tread mill 
tasks, however, is not the only function of the 
employment agent in most American factories. 
Fortunately for both employer and employee, 
manual labor is looked on as the first rung in 
the ladder which leads up to the successive 
planes of handy man, mechanic, even foreman. 
The demand for skilled workers far exceeds 
the supply, and will probably continue so for 
some years. 

Some of the Ideals to Attain in Hiring 
Unskilled Laborers 

The wise employment man, therefore, hires 
laborers whose youth, mental equipment and 
ambition make it possible to develop them 
either by direct or merely incidental training 
into machine tenders or mechanics of the spe¬ 
cialist type. Indeed, the chance to rise in this 
way may be used as an added inducement to 
young men who otherwise could never be se¬ 
cured as truckers and department laborers. 

Wherever this educational process is not 
forbidden by a contract with trades-unions, no 
more satisfactory method of filling vacancies 


34 


HOW TO GET HELP 


in the semi-skilled ranks could be devised than 
the hiring of capable, lusty young men as 
factory laborers. 

To secure the highest type of tool makers, 
pattern makers and machinists, undoubtedly 
experience in other shops is necessary; but 
mastery of a half-automatic machine can be 
attained without the two or three years’ ap¬ 
prenticeship on which the unions insist for 
obvious defensive reasons. 

Tested Out Applicants Are Easily and 
Quickly Broken in” 

An instance in my own experience will serve 
to show that with the right material this 
“breaking in” is a question of weeks instead 
of years. At the outset of one of the industrial 
booms the company for which I did the hiring 
was compelled to put on a night force in all the 
mill departments. At the time, the factory 
was a closed shop. Union men could not be 
secured in the numbers we required, and the 
local council was forced to consent to the rapid 
fire training of forty milling machine and drill 
press operators to meet the emergency. 

From our truckers, clerks and department 
helpers, I chose a score of young men, taking 
the other twenty from my lists of town and 
country boys who were eager to enter the com¬ 
pany’s employ, if a chance of bettering them¬ 
selves offered. All of them were of fair 
capacity, had common school education and 
appreciated the chance to learn a trade in a 
hurry. As we had jigs and gauges for every 
machine operation involved, the degree of skill 
required was soon learned. 



IV 

HIRING SEMI-SKILLED 
WORKMEN 


S EMI-SKILLED “handy men”—assem¬ 
blers, drill and punch press operators, 
milling and molding machine hands, 
and tenders of the hundred and one half-auto¬ 
matic machines, form the second great class 
into which labor, as a whole, may be divided. 

In hiring these semi-skilled men no better 
test exists for industry, intelligence and fiber 
than hard manual labor. If a man cheerfully 
“wrestles” his truck, or “puts his back” into 
lifting castings, he will not lack energy or dili¬ 
gence when promoted to a machine or given 
opportunity to use his kit of tools. It is well 
to have a few men of this type at hand for 
emergencies, but it is useless to expect to keep 
them long at rough labor. 

Expert knowledge or skill, however limited 
in scope, must be employed at its proper work 
or its efficiency will drop below the standard of 
the class to which it is reduced. As a tempo¬ 
rary makeshift, while waiting for a regular 
berth, a tool maker may serve as a handy man, 
a machine tender as laborer, a bookkeeper or 








36 


HOW TO GET HELP 


stenographer as a clerk. But always the re¬ 
action against mechanical and uninteresting 
toil comes, and if the agreeable task be not pro¬ 
vided, the man quits or “fires himself.’’ 

For this reason there is never profit in en¬ 
gaging a short term man unless it be for a brief 
rush season or to relieve some other temporary 
stress. Honesty in stating the conditions to 
the applicant, too, is imperative, if the com¬ 
pany’s name is to remain good. 

Experience, brain power, adaptability are 
the vital qualities to look for in a semi-skilled 
worker. In native mental and physical equip¬ 
ment, he must be almost the equal of the skilled 
worker—the latter’s apprenticeship making 
the real difference in capacity. Indeed the two 
classes may almost be treated as one so far as 
natural qualifications go. It is in the closely 
related matter of training and experience that 
the distinction must be emphasized. If a me¬ 
chanic or handy man satisfies the primary re¬ 
quirements of health, freedom from physical 
defects and bad habits; if he be of suitable age 
—forty-five is the maximum generally allowed, 
though the skill of blacksmiths, tool hardeners, 
saw smiths and a few other highly individ¬ 
ualized craftsmen often reaches its top limit at 
this age—and carry the outward marks of 
brains and self-respect, he is worth careful at¬ 
tention. 

General Experience Counts for Much in 
Hiring Men 

Experience counts for much, because it has 
shaped the applicant and given him ineradi¬ 
cable standards of what constitutes quality and 
finish. Therefore hire mechanics and handy 
mechanics and handy men who have been 
employed in plants using your own types of 


SEMI-SKILLED LABOR 


37 


APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT oatc 

manufacturing department 


NAMt IN FULL 


V 


ADDRESS 


FLAT 


FRONT 
REAR « 


KINO OF WORK WANTED 


WAGES EXPECTED. 


DATE OF BIRTH. 


nationality 


EDUCATION. 


WHAT LANGUAGES 00 YOU SPEAK?_ 

SINGLE OR MARRIED - WHOM 00 YOU SUPPORT? 


AND WRITE? 


STATE CONDITION OF HEALTH 


.ARE YOU RUPTURED? 


HAVE YOU ANY CHRONIC DISEASES?. 


HAVE YOU ANY DEFECT IN SIGHT. HEARING.SPEECH OR LIMB?_;_ 

WHEN WERE YOU LAST VACCINATED?_ ARE YOUR WAGES ASSIGNED?. 


GIVE NAMES OF YOUR RELATIVE9/N THIS COMPANY'S EMPLOY 


UFA BOY OP A GIRD. GIVE NAME AND ADDRESS OF YOUR FATHER 
WERC YOU EVER EMPLOYED BY THIS COMPANY?_ 


PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT 


GIVE NAMCS ANO A00RCSSC6 Of 
FIRMS YOU HAVE WORKED FOR 

KINO OF WORK OONC 

HOW LONG 

CMPLOVIO 

oatc or 

LEAVING . ' 

WAGES 

RECEIVED 

REASONS FOR LEAVING ' 






1 











m 













apprenticeship: when ano where served 


REFERENCES 


GIVE NAMES ETC. OF 3 PERSONS (NOT RELATIVES) WHO HAVE KNOWN YOU DURING PAST 8 YEARS 


NAME 

ADDRESS 

BUSINESS OR OCCUPATION 











INTRODUCED BY ~r 


cfMTTQPCPT. . . FOREMAN_ DATE _GIVEN BOOH RULES PRINTED IN 


FORM 5 : This style of application blank has been used by a large 
western firm with satisfaction and is designed to bring out all the infor¬ 
mation necessary, without unduly harassing the applicant. Many good 
men are driven away by too exhaustive inquiry 







































































38 


HOW TO GET HELP 


machines or producing work of approximately 
equal grade. 

Builders of typewriters, fire-arms, adding 
machines, cash registers are schooled to much 
the same standard of quality, for instance— 
accuracy and exact adjustment of parts being 
the first ideal. Therefore machine operators, 
assemblers or tool makers from any of the 
plants in this group find it easy to accommo¬ 
date their hands and their brains to the re¬ 
quirements in any other member of the group. 
In the same manner, wagon, plow, harvester 
and implement factories trade men with ease 
and safety, as do all sorts of engine works, 
foundries, textile factories and the multitude 
of smaller industries using merchant steel as 
their raw material. 

As is the case in employing unskilled men, 
attention should be paid to the future develop¬ 
ment of the employee in hiring semi-skilled 
mechanics. Watch for that jewel among work¬ 
men who has had foresight enough to acquire a 
trade allied to his regular avocation as insur¬ 
ance against idleness in dull seasons. It is 
this command of alternate trades or all-round 
acquaintance with one which makes German or 
English trained mechanics valuable despite 
their leisurely ways. 

How One Man with an Alternate Trade Was 
Discovered 

This extra capacity is not always advertised 
by the mechanic possessing it. It is my rule to 
learn whether an applicant has more than one 
trade at his command—in order to make 
emergency transfers from a department which 
is running slack to another overburdened with 
orders. I remember one mechanic engaged by 
correspondence, who struck me as a man of 


SEMI-SKILLED LABOR 


39 


unusual resource and mentality, but insisted 
that pattern-making, the thing for which h« 
was hired, was his only vocation. 

Set to work on a series of new and intricate 
tools, he proved himself an expert at his craft. 
He suggested some changes in the design, in¬ 
corporating them in his patterns. But the tool¬ 
room finding his methods foreign to its usual 
practice, had difficulty in reproducing his pat¬ 
terns, and he was called in for consultation. In 
ten minutes he demonstrated just how the 
patterns could be reproduced, exhibiting such 
knowledge of processes and skill in applying 
them that the foreman said bluntly: “You 
must be a tool-maker.’’ 

The new man admitted that he had made 
tools as well as patterns all his life. Explain¬ 
ing to me why he concealed his double skill, he 
declared that his last employers—small man¬ 
ufacturers—had shifted him from pattern and 
tool-making to sharpening and repair jobs 
nearly every week, and had cut his rate each 
time they set him at the less difficult tasks, thus 
actually penalizing him for his extra skill. I 
transferred him the same day and six weeks 
later signed the slip advancing him to job fore¬ 
man in his new department. 

Select Neiv Workmen Who Will Harmonize 
with Your Force 

Semi-skilled as well as the skilled em¬ 
ployees must be judiciously placed in the fac¬ 
tory. Foremen are often a stumbling block in 
the effective operation of a department, but the 
difficult foreman has qualities which make him 
invaluable to the house. When such is the 
case, the employment man must do his best not 
to hire temperaments which will clash with 
that of the boss in question. As illustration, I 


40 


HOW TO GET HELP 


engaged an assembler a few years ago who 
gave every promise of making a splendid 
workman and developing ultimately into a 
foreman of unusual drive and power. He was 
young, his energy was dynamic, his face and 
head as well as his manner showed him to be 
combative to the last degree—a quality pos¬ 
sessed by most of the men who “do things.” 

Bight Apportioning of Men Brings Good- 
Results 

I hired him for a department whose head 
was placid, even-tempered, hard to rouse. But 
I was away from the factory in search of 
screw-makers when he reported, and my assist¬ 
ant assigned him, because of a sudden press of 
hurry orders, to the room of a foreman as com¬ 
bative as the new man himself. The explosion 
occurred the second day—two job foremen 
pulled the men apart. My new assembler was 
paid off and the company lost an employee who 
was a positive addition to the organization, 
simply because my assistant did not take his 
temper and strong individuality into account 
when he changed his assignment. 

For the same psychological reason, the 
agent should keep before him the circum¬ 
stances surrounding the place he offers the 
man. The employment man is paid to 'as¬ 
semble a harmonious machine. In introduc¬ 
ing a new cog, then, he is wise to reject any 
which patently will not mesh with those 
already in place, unless the boss cog’s pecul¬ 
iarities are hurting the business. 



V 

HIRING SKILLED WORKMEN 

T OO much thought cannot be given to the 
examination of high-grade mechanics 
and handy men. They form the back¬ 
bone of the factory organization, set the pace 
for the whole machine, hold the reputation of 
the company in their hands. All that has been 
said about health, freedom from roving and 
convivial habits, and general education applies 
with double force to these skilled men. Thrift 
is a more certain indicator of steadiness even 
than possession of a family; so if an applicant 
owns or has owned property or has a savings 
account tucked away, the circumstance is 
worth noting. 

A record of frequent changes may add to his 
/alue, if he be a young man, since three or four 
factories have contributed to his education, 
and comparison of shop practice and methods 
have added to his mastery of his trade. If he 
be past thirty, however, and his stays in suc¬ 
cessive factories show no lengthening tend¬ 
ency, it may be assumed that he is a rover and 
not to be counted upon as a permanent work¬ 
man. In a man under twenty-five, the char¬ 
acter of the factory where he served bis 






42 


HOW TO GET HELP 


apprenticeship is important. As he takes on 
age and experience, however, the shops where 
he has been employed become the chief meas¬ 
ure of his worth as a workman. 

Ask him if he knows anyone in your own 
factory. Good workmen flock together. Quiet, 
dependable men make no friendships with 
erratic or roistering fellows. Mechanics have 
a pride in their craft, as a rule, which pre¬ 
cludes association with sloth or incompetence. 
If your man has a trade demanding hand tools, 
learn how many of these he owns and if they 
be of standard makes. If he has plenty of 
good tools it evinces interest in his work as well 
as a provident habit, and makes it unnecessary 
to lend from the company’s supply. If his kit 
is small or the tools mediocre he is likely to 
make trouble by borrowing from bench mates 
and turn out to be a slovenly workman. 

In engaging a high-grade man, it is worth 
while to bring him into direct contact with the 
machines or the work with which he professes 
himself familiar. If he be incompetent, a 
brief examination will betray his lack of skill 
and knowledge. Five minutes spent in the 
shop will give the foreman a chance to ‘‘size 
him up” and thereby check the employment 
man’s conclusions. Given a glimpse of the 
shop, too, the man if he have acid instead of 
iron in his blood, will scarcely resist the temp¬ 
tation to criticise the equipment, the other 
workmen, the methods or the product, and thus 
exhibit the fatal weakness before concealed. 

Guard Your Plant Always Against the Chronic 
Fault-finder 

If he be a faultfinder or meddler, no degree 
of skill or technical knowledge will outweigh 
a man’s mischievous tongue. Not long ago I 


SKILLED WORKMEN 


43 


made an exception from this rule and em¬ 
ployed a brass worker of unusual equipment. 
He was 34 years old and master of his trade 
from every angle, having served as melter, 
molder, filer, fitter, finisher and polisher. 

He had worked in seven foundries and dur¬ 
ing our five minutes talk he made some sar¬ 
castic allusion to the conduct of every one of 
them. But the three firms to whom I wrote 
gave him such an excellent character as a work¬ 
man and our need of a man of his caliber was 
so acute that I disregarded his temperament 
and put him on, warning him that he would 
have to accept the company’s policies or lose 
his new place. He promised to tend strictly to 
business and for a month kept his pledge and 
did splendid work. He suggested several val¬ 
uable changes in methods, and I entertained 
hopes that he would stick and eventually be¬ 
come a boss. 

The itch for characteristic expression, how¬ 
ever, was too strong. By the end of the second 
month his ridicule of the foreman’s methods 
and the company’s department rules had af¬ 
fected the discipline, his mastery of his trade 
giving him immense influence on the other 
men. At the end of the tenth week he was paid 
off to save the department from disorganiza¬ 
tion ; and it required nearly six months to re¬ 
store the harmony existing before he entered 
it. My exception has proved my rule—I will 
never hire a “knocker” again on any terms. 

The final question is that of wages. It is a 
mistaken policy, according to my experience, 
to hire a man for the smallest amount he will 
accept or to pay him the maximum rate at the 
beginning. All lines of factory work have a 
starting point generally recognized as equit¬ 
able, a man requiring some time to “get the 


44 


HOW TO GET HELP 


hang” of unfamiliar tasks and accustom him¬ 
self to his new surroundings and having, nat¬ 
urally, less value to his employer during this 
period. 

If the company has been paying the ac¬ 
cepted rate to others, there is no real profit in 
beating an applicant down because he needs 
work badly. He discovers the first day that 
advantage has been taken of his position to 
drive a hard bargain. Dissatisfaction follows 
immediately, he does not give the company his 
best efforts, he takes the first opportunity to 
demand an increase or seek another situation. 

Fair treatment, on the contrary, gives him 
an initial impulse of enthusiasm and an abid¬ 
ing desire to clinch his hold on a permanent 
place with a company willing to deal so justly 
with its employee. He will apply himself to 
speedy mastery of the job assigned him, and 
the increase in his output for a single day will 
sometimes repay the additional wage for a 
whole week. 

You are paying mechanics of his grade 
37 1-2 cents an hour, say, the rate having been 
established as necessary to secure the kind of 
men required. Being out of a job, or coming 
from a smaller town where cheap rent and 
lower living expenses kept wages at a lower 
level, he may be willing to start at 30 cents an 
hour. My idea of a square deal, both to the 
company and the man, would be to give him 
32 1-2 cents an hour, if I had made sure that 
he would be able to do the work, knowing that 
he would do more and better work because his 
pride and self-respect had not been humbled 
by the last turn of the screw. 

On the other hand, to pay him the full rate 
for a seasoned workman from the beginning 
would create dissatisfaction among the men al- 


SKILLED WORKMEN 


45 


APPLICATION FOR POSITION 

OFFICE DEPARTMENT 


OAT t 


NAME Or APPLICANT IN TULL. 
RESIDENCE_ 


P. O ADDRESS 


STATE SPECIFICALLY. HIND OF POSITION OESlREO. 


AGE 


NATIONALITY 


SALARY WANTED 


PER 


GIVE EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION IN FULL . 


(IF A GOT) DO YOU LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS?. 


HAVE YOU ANY OUTSIOE BUSINESS INTERESTS? 


ARE THERE ANY JUDGMENTS STANDING AGAINST YOU?_ 

STATE CONDITION OF HEALTH_ HAVE YOU ANY CHRONIC OISEASCS? 


EXPLAIN FULLY ANY OEFCCT YOU MAY HAVE IN SIGHT. HEARING. SPEECH OR LIMB. 


IF A BOV) GIVE NAME AND ADDRESS OF YOUR FATHER. . 




PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT 


CIVC NAMES ANO ADDRESSES OF 
FIRMS YOU HAVE WORMED FOR 


MIND OF WORM OONC 


HOW LONG 
EMPLOYED 


OATE OF WAGES 

LEAVING RECEIVED 


REASONS FCA LEAVING 




APPRENTICESHIP. WHEN ANO WHERE SERVED 


REFERENCES 

GIVE NAMES ETC. OF • PERSONS NOT RELATIVES' WHO HAVE KNOWN YOU DURING PAST 6 YEARS 


NAME 

ADDRESS 

BUSINESS OR OCCUPATION 











INTRODUCED BY 


SENT TO DEPt.'„ 


MANAGER. 


DATE 


GIVEN BOOH RULES PRINTED IN. 


FORM 6: This office application blank is aimed at the characteristics 
of the young applicant who has little commercial experience. It is used 
by a firm which likes to train good material its own way 


/ 











































































46 


HOW TO GET HELP 


ready employed, and the man himself, if he 
had only the usual amount of ambition would 
expect an increase after his “breaking in” was 
complete, arguing that since he was worth the 
full rate at the start, the increase in his output 
gave his subsequent services greater value. 

Not that I would counsel indiscriminate 
generosity. As the purchasing agent must buy 
materials at the lowest market price, the em¬ 
ployment man, to be successful, must hire at 
the lowest wages which will command perma¬ 
nent efficiency. The essential difference be¬ 
tween the position of the two men is that the 
purchasing agent can hold his sellers to their 
agreements while the employment man must 
consider the hundred subtle ways in which his 
contracts can be evaded or broken. 


VI 


PROMOTING MEN FROM 
THE RANKS 


T O keep his office and factory departments 
supplied with competent men secured 
at reasonable rates is the work of the 
employment agent. Therefore his first con¬ 
cerns are the sources from which he can 
draw recruits, the methods of keeping in 
touch with the various labor markets and the 
ways of reaching and securing individuals who 
would be desirable additions to the force. 

Three sources of skilled and semi-skilled 
men for both divisions exist—except in the 
case of very large industries, the floating sup¬ 
ply of laborers will prove adequate. For the 
better classes of workers, the company’s own 
organization is the one to be considered first. 
The quality of any man on your pay roll can 
be easily arrived at by inquiry of his foreman 
and his fellow workers—the man from outside 
is always an unknown quantity, no matter how 
well he “sizes up,” until he is tried in his new 
berth. If you can find a man to fill the vacant 
place inside your office or factory, then you 
save time, effort and the considerable cost of 
“breaking in” a stranger. 





48 


HOW TO GET HELP 


More important than this first obvious rea¬ 
son, however, is the effect on the organization 
of a policy of “ giving your own men the first 
chance.” In every large factory, particularly 
if the year have its dull seasons or the product 
is made to order, some departments find it 
necessary to “lay off” men at intervals or em¬ 
ploy them on tasks less profitable to the house. 
In most of the departments, also, if the hiring 
man has been wise, there are individuals who 
have taken temporary jobs below their real 
capacity in the hope that later an opening for 
them will appear in their regular occupation. 
Likewise, ambitious truckers have been study¬ 
ing machine operations at odd moments and 
have acquired skill enough to move up a peg to 
the semi-skilled plane, or “handy men” who in 
night schools or by correspondence course have 
earned the rating of mechanics. In the office 
division, if the organization is healthy there is 
the same progression from messenger to clerk, 
from clerk to accountant or stenographer, 
from specialist to department head. 

These ambitious or underrated employees 
form the internal or factory supply. It is the 
employment man’s business to keep in touch 
with all of them, to give them the pre¬ 
ference when the better place for which any of 
them is fitted offers or to transfer the super¬ 
fluous man, when a department is overmanned, 
to the place where his services are needed. 

Permanency of employment and opportun¬ 
ity of advancement are the magnets which 
draw good men to an organization and hold 
them faithful in the face of increased pay of¬ 
fered by other companies. They make power¬ 
fully, too, for loyalty, efficiency and alertness 
in individuals, since these are the qualities 
which win promotion from the ranks. In the 


EMPLOYMENT RECORD OF 


PROMOTING YOUR MEN 


49 



FORM 7: An envelope printed this way, makes an excellent employment record folder. In the left-hand column under “which” the 
initials of the code are used, for example, A (engaged) 3/8/13, B (advanced) 10/2/13, and so on. In the right-hand column “A.R.No.” stands for 
Accident Report Number.” The photograph will help prevent many substitution frauds; also it will familiarize the employment men with the force 


























































50 


HOW TO GET HELP 


same way, a disposition to “take care of ” every 
worker who has been doing his honest best by 
transfer when his particular work fails, evokes 
a corresponding spirit of co-operation, fidelity 
and solidarity among the men themselves. 

Not only must the employer buy quality but 
he must make terms which will prevent dete¬ 
rioration from the initial standard. In this 
he is sometimes aided, sometimes hampered, by 
the local market conditions, while the purchas¬ 
ing agent has no limit but the country’s visible 
supplies and the freight tariff schedules. 

Keeping in touch with departmental condi¬ 
tions is a matter of observation and inquiry. 
As a rule a foreman or department head can¬ 
not be wholly trusted to determine the exact 
needs of his department. Unconsciously he 
takes the “rush” season as his standard, thus 
is averse to losing a tried man and fights any 
reduction of his force so long as he can make a 
fair showing of activity and output. Pressure 
must sometimes be brought to bear to convince 
him that the interests of the company over¬ 
shadow the smooth running of his department 
a month hence, before he will consent to the 
loan of one or more of his workers to another 
department where the need is of today. 

For instance, the superintendent of a huge 
western plant determined recently, after study 
of the employment reports, that the number of 
new men put on was out of proportion to the 
current increase in business. The authority of 
the employment man had never been defined 
and he had had no choice, when a requisition 
was forwarded to him, but to fill it. Facing 
the superintendent’s decisive order, however, 
that no more men were to be hired until 
further orders from the front office, he was 
thrown back on his office and factory supply 


PROMOTING YOUR MEN 


51 


to fill his orders. For boys, particularly, there 
was a great demand, but every foreman fought 
transfers of his messengers and helpers. 

Exchanging Help between Departments to 
Meet Emergencies 

“ Will you let me have any boys who are not 
working this minute?” he was finally driven to 
ask, after study of various departments had 
convinced him that there was a certain amount 
of loafing among the lads. The foreman con¬ 
sented of course, but when the employment 
man rounded up two or three in several de¬ 
partments where a dozen boys were on duty, 
they objected to the transfer. Finally appeal 
was made to the superintendent. He saw a 
light, issued a genral order giving the employ¬ 
ment man jurisdiction over every man under 
the rank of department head, with authority 
to transfer, and reiterated his order to hire no 
more new men. 

For three months, the embargo on outside 
labor was enforced, and though nearly a hun¬ 
dred names were lost to the pay roll in that 
time, the readjustment of the thousands left 
had been made to such good purpose that the 
service to customers has not suffered. Besides 
the saving of thousands of dollars in wages, the 
transfers and promotions had actually in¬ 
creased the efficienc}^ of the organization by 
putting individuals in the places for which 
they were best fitted. 

Occupations the most diverse are sometimes 
brought together in a single individual. For 
example, wanting a telegraph operator, I 
found an entry clerk drawing $10 a week who 
had had nine years’ experience in charge of a 
local office and was delighted at the change and 
the advance I could give him. 


52 


HOW TO GET HELP 


I have found truckers in my occupation file 
who have had all around experience as country 
blacksmiths, as machine operators of every 
kind, as painters and wood workers, and handy 
men by dozens who were easily drafted into 
places held by skilled workers before them. 

In shifting men in anticipation of a slump 
of orders in any department, the best method 
is to take their names from the foreman at the 
earliest opportunity, get their trades from the 
application blanks and keep the list on your 
desk as a sort of emergency market. In 
placing satisfactory men under such circum¬ 
stances, I would have no hesitancy in dismis¬ 
sing a mediocre man in another department. 

When it is known in a factory that promo¬ 
tion from the ranks will be made whenever 
possible, ambitious men and boys will begin to 
fit themselves for better places and will make 
every effort to keep bright their department 
records for punctuality, application and satis¬ 
factory handling of their work 

“Ginger talks” and suggestion prizes have 
their places in speeding up a factory or office 
organization, but when workers understand 
that they are watched, not so much to insure 
performance of their tasks, as to get at their 
capacity for better jobs, there is an immediate 
and striking advance in individual efficiency 
and enthusiasm. 

The final element in the internal supply is 
the man laid off because work has slackened in 
a seasonal industry. Though usually the weak¬ 
est member of the department, it is well to bear 
him in mind if there is likely to be need of him 
within a month or six weeks. Longer than that 
you are hardly able to command him, since his 
hunt for work will probably prove successful. 



VII 

NEIGHBORHOOD SOURCES 
OF SUPPLY 


N O hard and fast program can be outlined 
for handling your labor markets, local 
or foreign. Circumstances surround 
every industry, the personality and individual 
convictions of its management color its labor 
policy, so as to make the problem of supplying 
office departments and factory workrooms one 
which every employment man must work out 
for himself. The utmost of help which can be 
given him is to suggest the common tools of his 
trade, the methods by which workers of all 
classes can be reached and engaged, the things 
to be kept in mind when searching and hiring 
acceptable employees. It is for the man who 
hires to determine which of these methods will 
be cheapest and most effective when applied 
to his own factory. 

The local supply and your string of appli¬ 
cants do not mean the same thing, save in the 
case of unskilled labor, either pick-and-shovel 
men or the beginners in office and factory 
trades. If your factory has a wide reputation 
for paying fair wages, providing shop condi- 










54 


HOW TO GET HELP 


tions above the average, if there is abundance 
of sunlight, heat, fresh air in your workrooms 
and your tools are kept in good condition, 
many skilled mechanics will be attracted from 
other cities. Frequently, too, they will be so 
conscious of their own ability to ‘‘make good” 
at their trades that they will make no effort to 
sell themselves to you at long range but will 
‘ i up stakes ’’ and apply in person. Despite this 
fact, however, the better class of mechanics 
usually are not found among your daily appli¬ 
cants. These you must seek in other shops or 
other cities. The very fact that they are em¬ 
ployed and in demand wherever they happen 
to be is sure evidence that they are the kind of 
men you want. Therefore they are worth go¬ 
ing after. 

Handling the local market for skilled men— 
either for office or factory—is a delicate opera¬ 
tion in all but the great cities. In general 
there is a sort of tacit agreement among all the 
employers of the smaller centers that there 
will be no hiring of one another’s skilled men. 
Not infrequently this is unfair, both to me¬ 
chanics and the better organized of the indus¬ 
tries. I believe that the local labor mar¬ 
ket should be fair and open, and that the best 
men should gravitate to the company where 
their value is greatest, as shown by the wages 
paid for their kind of skill. There are many 
sorts of work for which a high rate cannot be 
paid—why should a man of unusual skill be 
employed on such when his intelligence and 
dexterity can produce greater wealth else¬ 
where ? 

Open bidding for the services of such men, 
of course, might be resented. There are half 
a dozen ways of reaching them—to which no 
employer could object. 


NEIGHBORHOOD LABOR SUPPLY 


55 


WILCOX COMPANY^ 

CHICAGO 


1 IN AN3WCBINO PLEASE BEFEB TO NCfcl3477 


PASTE 

PHOTOGRAPH 
OF APPLICANT 
HERE 


Smith and Watson, 


June 6th, 1913 


Syracuse, N.Y.; 


Gentlemen: 


Gao. W. Johnson (photo attached) 
has applied to us for a position es Machinist --'lathe hand. 


On his application he stated that he was in your 
employ for eight years, doing same class of work, leaving 
April 20th, 1909, for reason that he wished to come to 
Chicago. 


We require all applicants to furnish responsible ref 
erences as to their respectability, qualifications for the 
position named, etc., and shall feel greatly obliged, and 
treat confidentially, replies to questions below, together 
with any other information you may give us concerning him. 

Very respectfully, 

WILCOX CO. 

J.H.Harbland. 


Is his statement correct! 

Is he,to your knowledge, of 
good character and habits! 

Is his general conduct such as to entitle 
him to the confidence of his employers! 

Do you consider him competent to 
fill the position he applied for! 

REMARKS: 


Dated 


Signed 


FORM 8: This letter brings the exact information required instead 
of the general and useless “To whom it may concern” type of reply. 
Pasting a photograph of the applicant on the reference letter lessens the 
possibility of getting an opinion on the wrong man 







56 


HOW TO GET HELP 


(1) Through men already employed— 
since skilled men in the same line are likely to 
know the best workmen in their own lines and 
the shops in which they work. Usually it is 
enough to ask them. If they are satisfied with 
the shop conditions, they will persuade their 
friends to make application. 

(2) Through your foremen, if their judg¬ 
ment and freedom from personal bias can be 
trusted. They know the foremen in the other 
shops if they are wide-awake and good me¬ 
chanics. Not infrequently they will hear of a 
thoroughly good workman who has been laid 
off because orders are failing, or is dissatisfied 
with the conditions under which he is working 
or living. 

(3 Machinery houses usually have lists of 
mechanics able to handle their lathes, planers, 
universal milling machines, woodworking ma¬ 
chines and so on. 

(4) Blind advertising in newspapers, the 
average manufacturing concern not caring to 
appear publicly in the market for workmen of 
any certain type. Unless press of orders or 
enlargements of equipment supply the reason, 
public advertising usually creates uneasiness 
among employees or prompts them to make de¬ 
mands based on the putative necessity of the 
company to retain their services. 

(5) Standing lists of local men available, 
either those who have made application di¬ 
rectly or have announced themselves open to 
an offer from your concern when you have a 
place to their liking. In handling such a list, 
it is well to keep in touch with individuals 
every thirty days through the medium of a 
return postal. 



VIII 

GETTING IN TOUCH WITH 
OUT-OF-TOWN WORKMEN 

A S the local market has come to be the 
most important consideration in locat¬ 
ing a factory, it is the thing which more 
than all else determines the policy in hiring 
men. It is a truism to say that the larger the 
city, the greater the available or floating sup¬ 
ply of workmen of all classes—likewise the 
greater the chance that your skilled men may 
be hired away from you. Things have a way 
of evening themselves up. 

This lack of competition, desirable as it is 
from the employer’s viewpoint, has the effect 
of limiting the market for the better grades of 
men. The thoughtful mechanic is shy of pro¬ 
posals to move to towns where he will have no 
choice of employers and no chance of securing 
another berth if he should lose the one offered 
him. He may agree that the lowered cost of 
living makes reduction from the large-city 
scale of wages perfectly fair, but if you seek 
him—as is usually the case when your factory 
is in a town away from the great centers of in¬ 
dustry—the guarantees he exacts may wipe 







58 


HOW TO GET HELP 


out the advantages of the low wage scale. 

New England tool makers and expert me¬ 
chanics, for example, will not settle in any of 
the smaller cities west of Pittsburgh except on 
an agreement to pay their moving bills and to 
send them back cost free should employment 
fail within a year or good reason arise for dis¬ 
satisfaction on their part. To balance the dif¬ 
ficulty in securing skilled men, however, the 
small town offers the unquestioned advantage 
of a stable supply of intelligent laborers who 
are handy men and machine operators in the 
raw. 

Since it is the amount of work and number 
of potential employers, the living conditions— 
housing facilities, rents, price of necessities, 
school facilities and local transportation— 
which establish local market conditions, the 
more an employment man knows about the 
general and factory situation where an appli¬ 
cant has been employed, the better bargain he 
is able to make with him. The man may have 
been working in a factory unfavorably located 
or one on which physical conditions or the 
nature of the product set an artificial value on 
his ability. The market may have been famine- 
stricken, due to a temporary demand for men 
in his trade, or the management may have been 
incompetent to correlate the elements rightly 
fixing wages. 

The antithesis of this, of course, is the con¬ 
crete advantages the employment agent is able 
to marshal for the persuasion of a mechanic 
who is desirable. When the local market, re¬ 
inforcing your internal supply, is inadequate 
to factory or office needs for skilled men, the 
only recourse is to other industrial centers— 
selected, of course, with an eye to the largest 
available number of such men as you want and 


OUT-OF-TOWN WORKMEN 


59 


the current local demand for their services. 

In reaching and working these foreign 
fields, there are several methods which may be 
used singly or in conjunction, depending on the 
urgency and extensiveness of your demands. 
Here, too, the standing of your company touch¬ 
ing working conditions and treatment of men. 
the stability of employment, the living condi¬ 
tions and school facilities of your town, the 
general cost of living and the nature of your 
local labor market are all selling points for the 
influencing of the workmen you seek, or on the 
contrary, negative arguments which you must 
overcome in your handling of them. Follow¬ 
ing are some ways of getting into communica¬ 
tion with them: 

(1) A standing list of applicants. If your 
local supply is never quite adequate, it is well 
to list every skilled man who writes to you, and 
keep in constant touch with him by means of a 
“tickler’’ file, sending him a return postal card 
every thirty days—the signing and mailing of 
which will signify that he is still open to a 
proposition. For an industry requiring occa¬ 
sional drafts on out-of-town markets, I know 
no other method at once so cheap and satis¬ 
factory. The “tickler” cards can be split up 
among all the days of the month, the double 
postal can bear a printed form and the work of 
addressing and dating can be performed in a 
few minutes each day. 

In making up this standing file of appli¬ 
cants, it is not necessary to do more than 
satisfy yourself that the man probably is de¬ 
sirable and that he has a good reason for wish¬ 
ing to ]eave his present employment or to ac¬ 
count for being out of work. Looking up his 
references is a thing to be avoided, both be¬ 
cause it involves correspondence which may be 


CO 


HOW TO GET HELP 


wholly profitless because you can never use the 
man and because it is an injustice to the appli¬ 
cant to exhaust the patience of his sponsors or 
former employers. 

Acknowledge every letter, however, whether 
the writer impresses you or not, for the name 
of the house can easily suffer through a man 
who has been ignored. At the same time be 
explicit in your answer, state the situation 
plainly, and make no statement which can in 
any way be twisted by the recipient’s fancy 
into a promise of work or you may have him 
presenting himself before you within a week. 
File your out-of-town cards by occupations. I 
have followed skilled men by means of a “tick¬ 
ler” file for more than a year, and in the end 
hired them at a total cost of less than half a 
dollar. 

(2) “Want ads” in out-of-town news¬ 
papers. Choose one or more cities having in¬ 
dustries similar to your own, and insert a blind 
advertisement from three to six times explain¬ 
ing exactly what kind of men you want, the 
wages paid, the advantages your industry and 
city offer to skilled workers, the cost of living 
Make your announcement attractive; it must 
have selling quality to appeal to the kind of 
man you’re hunting and stir his interest to the 
point of writing to your newspaper address. 
Secure a copy of the paper you intend to use, 
and make your “ad” different from the pre¬ 
vailing type either by the use of white space or 
some other method of display. 

Use the “want ad” medium or mediums of 
the town you’ve selected—the penny paper by 
preference and an evening sheet. Be careful 
not to overstate your case or promise perma¬ 
nent employment if you want men for only 
three or six months. Absolute honesty in this 


OUT-OF-TOWN WORKMEN 


61 


regard is imperative. Order the newspapers 
to forward all answers to your “ad” and cor¬ 
respond with the writers directly. 

(3) Advertising in trade papers. For high- 
grade machinists, tool-makers, electricians and 
engineers, the machinery papers; for black¬ 
smiths, tool-hardeners, molders, and other iron 
workers, the iron trade papers; for cabinet 
makers, pattern makers and machine oper¬ 
ators, the wood-working journals. 

(4) Personal canvass of foreign markets. 
If you need men in numbers and want them 
quickly, the most effective method is to take 
to the road yourself or send a competent fore¬ 
man to interview and engage workers. 

Select your cities as for the “want ad” cam¬ 
paign, and send “want ads” ahead of you for 
insertion at least twenty-four hours before 
your arrival in the city so that men in the shops 
will have time to talk your visit over and so 
give it wider publicity and perhaps persuade 
one another that the opening is worth investi¬ 
gation. Tell what you want and name your 
hotel and the hours during the day and evening 
when you can be seen. 

If you need ten or a dozen tool makers or 
twice as many workers in other trades, for in¬ 
stance, you may visit three or four towns be¬ 
fore you secure just the kind of workers the 
tasks demand. 

(5) Direct advertising and general public 
advertising in the case of important industries 
situated away from the great labor markets. 
It has been found profitable to advertise at tol¬ 
erably regular intervals in these latter centers, 
and follow up all applicants by means of a 
“tickler” file like that described above. Such 
industries are always in need of superior me¬ 
chanics and tool makers and for the usual local 


62 HOW TO GET HELP 

supply they are compelled to create a foreign 
supply just as staple. In the way of direct ad¬ 
vertising, they use booklets describing and 
picturing factory living conditions, giving 
their wage scale and piece-work rates and 
other information likely to interest workmen 
of intelligence. These are distributed in vari¬ 
ous ways, sometimes by the selling agencies in 
industrial centers. 

(7) Study of labor conditions throughout 
the country. A slump in some industry em¬ 
ploying your kind of men may release scores 
of good workmen at the very moment when you 
need them. Threat of a strike, also, frequently 
drives the best mechanics away from the fac¬ 
tory before the trouble really takes form, since 
they prefer to throw up their places rather 
than run risks of being connected with a walk¬ 
out. As these men scatter, one or more of them 
may apply to you in person. From him the 
names of a dozen or twenty other high-grade 
men may be secured who will welcome the 
chance to “jump before they are pushed.” 

(8) Names supplied by workmen from 
other cities who have “made good.” Since 
every mechanic is a fair type of his associates 
and friends, the new man who proves his 
ability can be used by the employment office 
in the search of skilled men. Usually, if he is 
satisfied with his working and living condi¬ 
tions and wages, he is only too glad to advertise 
the fact to friends in his last factory. If you 
need more men of his stamp, ask him to write 
to these friends. By judicious coaxing his let¬ 
ters can be made to state conditions exactly as 
they are, and only the final letter engaging the 
other man need be written by the employment 
agent. References, in such cases, are not in¬ 
dispensable—the type of your first workman 


OUT-OF-TOWN WORKMEN 


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64 


HOW TO GET HELP 


giving you a reasonable line on bis mates. 

This method sometimes works a hardship on 
the factory from which you draw the men; es¬ 
pecially if your shop conditions be superior 
and your rates higher. But here again the 
company to which the individual worker is of 
the greatest value ought to be able to command 
his services. 

(9) Correspondence with the superintend¬ 
ents or employment agents of out-of-town fac¬ 
tories. Conditions in differing industries are 
frequently so wide apart that one factory will 
have a reserved list too large to be comfortable 
while another is experiencing a famine. De¬ 
sire to help the men it can’t use and to accom¬ 
modate a company which may return the favor 
at another time will usually prompt the former 
to good nature, whether or not there have been 
previous business relations between the houses. 

(10) Employment agencies of proved 
worth. In nearly all the largest cities there 
are agencies that confine their activities to 
limited fields like the supplying of mechanics 
and technical experts or office specialists of 
various types. The average employment 
agency which lists every class of labor is of 
little use in the securing of good men. The 
value of the other depends entirely on the 
character and knowledge of the man who con¬ 
ducts it. If you have tried him and found him 
trustworthy you will certainly receive no other 
service so cheap and satisfactory. 






I 






































































